A consortium, comprised of China Mobile International, Facebook, MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, Saudi Telecom Company (stc), Telecom Egypt, Vodafone, and WIOCC, decided to expand a giant sub-sea cable in Africa.
The consortium will add four new branches to the 2Africa cable, extending its connectivity to Seychelles, the Comoros Islands, and Angola, and bringing a new landing to south-east Nigeria, according to a statement on Monday.
The new branches join the recently announced link to the Canary Islands, raising the number of 2Africa landings to 35 in 26 countries.
2Africa is set to be the world’s largest subsea cable project, expecting to deliver faster, more reliable internet service to each country where it lands.
Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), chosen to deploy the new branches, has started manufacturing the cable and building repeater units in its plants in Calais and Greenwich to deploy the first segments in 2022.
Launched in May 2020, the 2Africa cable is expected to come into service in late 2023 as Egypt’s terrestrial crossing, which interconnects landing sites on the Red and the Mediterranean Seas via two completely diverse terrestrial routes, has been completed ahead of schedule.
